Search Engine Optimization, which most Internet professionals call SEO, is the process of creating quality content that the search engines will recognize as quality content. This means text. Search engines cannot read images. They cannot watch a movie. Google can now read and index some text that appears inside of Flash, but the results are uncertain.

You can use a Flash intro, but we would rather see you use Flash embedded on an HTML page so the search engines can read it. Before asking why your website is not ranked first, ask yourself, should your site be ranked first? Does your site provide more high quality, valuable, unique information on your industry than other websites? If not, SEO Houston will make your website a place where people will go to find accurate information.

Search Engine Optimization is Writing

A Houston or Dallas Search Engine Optimization consultant must be a talented writer who can use the English language well, to create quality content for your site. We will use your key words, but not over use them. The experts who write the search engine algorithms know the difference between a quality essay and a simple list of key words, used repeatedly, for no real purpose other than to trick the search engines.

Google gives priority to informational websites such as legitimate newspapers and magazines, and the broadcast media, over commercial websites that sell products or services. Therefore, in addition to writing articles for your website, it also helps to have an article published, and ask the newspaper or trade publication to link the article to your website. SEO is writing. Creating text is what we do.

SEO Houston Will Do It the Right Way

Every person has heard the way to rank well is to get a lot of crazy inbound links from unrelated sites. Forget it. The only legitimate purpose of a link is to send quality traffic to your website. Links are important, and the anchor text used in the links is very important, but only if they will send traffic to your site which will have a real interest in your website. Do you need a link from a car wash in some other country, if you are selling real estate or dental services? The search engines know the difference.

If you are in a competitive industry, your competition may do many things to get their site ranked ahead of you. The common tricks include creating "doorway" pages, using false or misleading key words, hijacking a high quality domain that has been abandoned or expired, linking with pornography sites, etc.

We do not play those games. We follow the rules established by the major search engines. This benefits our clients because if the search engines discover any form of deception, a site can be banned. Do not worry about what other sites do; you can only get banned for what your site does. If zillions of unrelated websites link to you because you are on a directory page that they have copied, the search engines will not hold that against you, but they will attempt to ignore those links when calculating your rank. There is no long term advantage in trying to game the system.

SEO Houston Likes Directories

It is no longer important to submit your site to search engines, but it is very important to submit to directories. The search engines crawl the directories constantly, and follow the links. The two most important directories – Yahoo and Open Directory – are built by human editors who judge the value of your site’s content. A listing in Open Directory Project (known as ODP or DMOZ) is free but totally unpredictable. Submit once (and only once) to the category you qualify for. ODP is run by volunteers. There is no way to know if or when you will be listed. If you do get in, your listing will be copied by thousands of other directories.

The Yahoo Directory costs $299 per year and is well worth it. The higher you are listed in the directory, the better the result. A listing in a top category of the directory indicates that you are an expert. Always submit to the highest level category for which you qualify, and ask Yahoo for a duplicate listing in regional (the city where you live). Most Yahoo editors will give you a second listing, if you make the request and if your site qualifies. Your Yahoo listing should appear within two weeks, and then the search engines will crawl your site on a regular basis.

There are many other important issues. The total SEO process is a combination of writing, clean HTML code, and obtaining quality links from legitimate sites. At SEO Houston we study issues that change monthly, such as what makes a link illegitimate? How many inbound links do you need, and from what types of websites? How should the anchor text of each link be phrased? The world of Houston and Dallas Search Engine Optimization changes constantly, as the search engines improve their very complex algorithms, and the Houston and Dallas SEO professionals study the result.

Buying Search Results?

It is not possible to buy search results from any of the major search engines. You can, however, purchase "pay-per-click" advertising which will appear near or above the search results. You pay only when someone clicks on the ad, thus the phrase pay-per-click or PPC. It costs very little to start but can become expensive if you do not have expert guidance.